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There's a text written by a monk in early medieval Spain that I can't find that my sister was working with last year where the author attempts to show that Moroccan scorpions are part of a prophecy in revelations, and when the antichrist appears, Moroccan scorpions will be involved.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:40
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Fair enough. More meaning it along the lines of "I do not want morality to be a matter of popular vote". I think that it is fundamentally unjust to have morality be decided upon simply because "eh, most of us believe it". To me that seems... I dunno it seems fundamentally at odds with how stuff should be. Like it makes murder okay if done under certain circumstances, or other things and I cannot reconcile that with people trying to be good in general. No. Things are either good or bad. Other factors may eventually inform if something is good or bad, but those are the only two options. Anything else is introducing complexity for the sake of doing the old thing of "Well I want to do this, but I can't justify it, let me think up some way in which it becomes justifiable". No-one in a story or in real life has ever really agreed with the idea that morality is subjective and not been, at bare minimum, a bit of an arse. You can't go "We are not so different you and I" without falling into Bond Villain solipsism. Just till I die. That's long enough. A pity, I do find the "what if" ideas of history fascinating! shame on an IGA posted:I'm completely serious here, please watch Neon Genesis Evangelion. I felt this way about myself for a long time and watching a fictional character do exactly the same thing and feeling the compassion I refused to have for myself for someone doing exactly that, because they were doing exactly that, was the jolt I needed to finally wake up and be ok to myself. Please do take this as light joking, but this feels like the anime fan version of the " a man falls through the earth and into parisian catacombs. taking a torch from the wall he spies row upon row of skeletons. grasping the nearest by the shoulders, he shakes it madly, yelling "... have u tried lsd". Thank you though, I probably should. Thirteen Orphans posted:I'm positive the "Bible Code" folks have at least tried it. I always love linking this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment
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Jan 21, 2021 23:41
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Josef bugman posted:No. Things are either good or bad. Other factors may eventually inform if something is good or bad, but those are the only two options. Anything else is introducing complexity for the sake of doing the old thing of "Well I want to do this, but I can't justify it, let me think up some way in which it becomes justifiable". No-one in a story or in real life has ever really agreed with the idea that morality is subjective and not been, at bare minimum, a bit of an arse. You can't go "We are not so different you and I" without falling into Bond Villain solipsism. 
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Jan 21, 2021 23:45
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Josef bugman posted:I always love linking this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment I had no idea the Baha’i faith was intertwined with Millerism. Fascinating.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:47
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Nessus posted:I think some of that stuff requires ready access to the Scriptures themselves. While I am not sure how literate or illiterate populations like European peasantry in the middle ages actually were, I am confident they probably did not have home access to the Bible. There were huge throngs packing cathedrals at midnight of 999 A.D., expecting Christ to return. Lots of people sold all they had and otherwise committed themselves to it. It was absolutely a thing. Of course, then they figured out it wasn't 1000 years after Christ was born, it was supposed to be 1000 years after he died. So there were even bigger throngs awaiting Christ's return in 1033. It doesn't take everyone having access to the Bible. It only requires a few literate nuts to whip up crowds into believing it.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:51
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Josef bugman posted:A pity, I do find the "what if" ideas of history fascinating! An interesting related what if about the temple is what if the temple reconstruction during the reign of Julian had been completed. Julian was the last non-Christian emperor, and he tried to stem the growth of Christianity by allowing, and providing state support and resources, for the reconstruction of the Jerusalem temple in 363 AD. His theory was that a revitalizes Judaism would pull support away from Christianity. The attempts at construction were halted by a fire and/or an earthquake soon after work started, and shortly after that Julian died while fighting the Persians (an occupational hazard for emperors) and the project was never resumed. Julian only reigned 2 years before his death. It is interesting to imagine how the history of Rome, Christianity, and Judaism would have developed differently if Julian had reigned for decades instead. The development of rabbinic Judaism may well have been halted if a Third Temple got up and running.
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Jan 21, 2021 23:54
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Nessus posted:Dogg this is exactly what you are doing while searching for a justification on why you, personally, deserve to be miserable and unforgiven. If you allow yourself to do that, surely you must allow the existence of moral complexity, particularly when you recently said "violence is not a priori wrong". That isn't morally complex though! Things are either good or bad, depending on when, but that doesn't mean that the binary state does not exist for either of those things. Plus any attempt to justify oneself is inherently suspect! You wouldn't trust someone on trial just because they said "honest guv" at the end of what they were saying! It's a very interesting article. I like how it still has shock waves down to the current day! I still don't know why this didn't result in a lot of people getting very cross at their priests. CrypticFox posted:Julian only reigned 2 years before his death. It is interesting to imagine how the history of Rome, Christianity, and Judaism would have developed differently if Julian had reigned for decades instead. The development of rabbinic Judaism may well have been halted if a Third Temple got up and running. That would be interesting. Another thing I found interesting was how much Julians hatred for Christianity might have come out of his own time spent around the Constantine family. I think things may well have developed in a more syncretic direction, and that would have been very cool to see!
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Jan 22, 2021 00:41
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Josef bugman posted:That isn't morally complex though! Things are either good or bad, depending on when, but that doesn't mean that the binary state does not exist for either of those things. Plus any attempt to justify oneself is inherently suspect! You wouldn't trust someone on trial just because they said "honest guv" at the end of what they were saying! You probably could sell a lot of copies of a book with something like "God: the Ultimate Police Commissioner" though. You might have to get a ghost-writer to include bible citations...
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Jan 22, 2021 00:54
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You're a loose cannon, God, but you get results!
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Jan 22, 2021 01:01
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HopperUK posted:You're a loose cannon, God, but you get results! And then the sequel, of course, "he said he only needed three."
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Jan 22, 2021 01:15
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Nessus posted:I don't understand the trial metaphor. This all seems to keep coming back to criminal justice metaphors. Reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai Justice is pretty much what I think about a lot. It's how everything needs to be seen, what is just and unjust and how guilt and recompense are meted out. They are important things.
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Jan 22, 2021 01:17
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Nessus posted:You probably could sell a lot of copies of a book with something like "God: the Ultimate Police Commissioner" though. You might have to get a ghost-writer to include bible citations... But as far as trial metaphors go, it's worth remembering that forgiveness and permission are not the same thing. Forgiveness means you acknowledge what happened, but are willing to let it go. It does not mean you approve of it. This is something that infests every argument about the death penalty. "I don't think x deserves to die." "But he killed 6 people." "I know, but killing him would be wrong." "But he killed 6 people." "I'm not saying that wasn't wrong, just that this is also wrong." "But--" I would also say that there's also a big difference between self-punishment and humility, the latter of which is a virtue. It's also worth remembering that one of the literal meanings of the word "Satan" is "Accuser." Satan is basically a corrupt, hyperzealous prosecutor.
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Jan 22, 2021 01:29
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And if you are unwilling to let it go? What then? We shouldn't have to forgive other people, or ourselves. To do so might be a good thing, but it can still be the wrong thing to do.Keromaru5 posted:there's also a big difference between self-punishment and humility. This is like the office meme. It's just me going "they are the same picture".
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Jan 22, 2021 01:38
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Keromaru5 posted:But as far as trial metaphors go, it's worth remembering that forgiveness and permission are not the same thing. Forgiveness means you acknowledge what happened, but are willing to let it go. It does not mean you approve of it. This is something that infests every argument about the death penalty. "I don't think x deserves to die." "But he killed 6 people." "I know, but killing him would be wrong." "But he killed 6 people." "I'm not saying that wasn't wrong, just that this is also wrong." "But--"
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Jan 22, 2021 01:45
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Josef bugman posted:
They are super not the same thing. JB I really like you but sometimes I want to find whoever taught you about guilt and recrimination and morality and smack them around with a loaf of bread. Even if that person is you. Especially if it's you.
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Jan 22, 2021 01:57
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HopperUK posted:They are super not the same thing. JB I really like you but sometimes I want to find whoever taught you about guilt and recrimination and morality and smack them around with a loaf of bread. Even if that person is you. Especially if it's you. 
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Jan 22, 2021 02:04
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You have an extremely unhealthy way of thinking Bugman.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:08
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Gaius Marius posted:You have an extremely unhealthy way of thinking Bugman. Hey, take that back! I have an unhealthy way of thinking about myself. My other opinions are fine.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:11
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That is exactly what my abusive father taught me because it resulted in me engaging in behavior patterns that were super-convenient for him and terrible for me.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:12
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Josef bugman posted:Hey, take that back! I have an unhealthy way of thinking about myself. My other opinions are fine. No, it colors everything about you. You tend to have very absolutist, unhealthy opinions about almost everything.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:18
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Josef bugman posted:Hey, take that back! I have an unhealthy way of thinking about myself. My other opinions are fine.  Are you trying to be an Internet Circumcellion or something here?
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Jan 22, 2021 02:19
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shame on an IGA posted:That is exactly what my abusive father taught me because it resulted in me engaging in behavior patterns that were super-convenient for him and terrible for me. I am so sorry to hear this! I don't want to pry, but I do hope things are going better for you now! Nessus posted:
Ha, not quite. I am meaning it at least in part in self-mockery. I wish we could emoji usage was more prevalent on the forum, it's what I usually do to show I'm joking. Deteriorata posted:No, it colors everything about you. You tend to have very absolutist, unhealthy opinions about almost everything. I have absolutist opinions about a lot of things, that is very true, but I am not sure that those things are inherently unhealthy. Having clear delineation is a good thing when it comes to how we view certain subjects. Sometimes things are just bad, there doesn't need to be an excuse made for them or a reason to examine.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:26
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I think they might be inherently unhealthy because, and forgive the presumption, you always seem to be deeply unhappy in every thread I encounter you in. The way you make yourself think seems to cause you a great deal of pain, and that's the definition of unhealthy to me.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:30
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Josef bugman posted:Hey, take that back! I have an unhealthy way of thinking about myself. My other opinions are fine. The thing is that the way you think about yourself, and the resulting behavior, can have effects on others. Often painful ones! I'm going to use an example from my own life here. I have an over-developed sense of shame, and as a result, I often apologize for stuff that I perceive as having been rude or thoughtless, even when the other person hasn't even noticed. I have the following exchange with my fiance a few times a week: Me: I'm sorry! Fiance: What are you apologizing for? Me: For (doing, or not doing, something or another) Fiance: I didn't notice / it's nothing to worry about Now, at this point, I often get the temptation to explain in depth how rude whatever I just did is, and what I should have done instead, and how generally terrible I am... but my fiance has already told me that they aren't hurt, and if I proceed to explain how they should have been and continue to denigrate myself, that actually does hurt them in a way the initial "offense" didn't. This behavior is based in my dumb brain problems, but it absolutely can hurt my loved ones if I let it. The thing about self-denigrating behavior is that, while it might feel good to your depression, it results in much more pain overall for yourself and those who care about you. Even if it somehow led to perfect moral decision-making (which it doesn't, because everyone makes mistakes), it's still an aggregate increase in pain for no reason, and a lot of that pain ends up on bystanders.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:43
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Just as there is no ironic racism, the truth is that there is no such thing as ironic self-hatred. The belief that I was inherently less than others reinforced itself until I was invested in it. quote:If I've spent all this time being miserable, and I'm wrong about being a piece of poo poo, won't that make all of it a waste? Pride, ultimately, was the thing that was holding me at the bottom of that pit. Once I admitted there was a chance, just a chance, that I might be wrong, and started honestly examining it, everything changed overnight.
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Jan 22, 2021 02:50
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Oh dear, I am sorry. I don't mean to come across that way. Antivehicular posted:The thing is that the way you think about yourself, and the resulting behavior, can have effects on others. Often painful ones! I am sorry to hear that you feel this about yourself! I don't believe that you should. However, if it's okay I try and just not tell people IRL my feelings. It all gets vented on here where no-one knows me and, let us be blunt, I am just another dude with a mech avatar. It's less impactful. All of this talk is me trying to explain myself and the way I feel, because I know that it won't weigh so heavily on other people. What's that old quote "we should beware of what we pretend to be" and all that? Sure there might be a chance, but believe me on this, there really isn't any chance that I am wrong on this. I am happy that you don't feel like that though! That's a good thing!
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Jan 22, 2021 03:05
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Josef bugman posted:Fair enough. Murder is an interesting example because we do consider it okay under certain circumstances. Self defense is acceptable, and we tend to distinguish murder by various degrees of severity so we acknowledge that accidentally hitting and killing someone with your car is different than putting a bomb in theirs. We also generally consider it acceptable for some people to kill as part of their profession, soldiers and police officers.
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Jan 22, 2021 04:03
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White Coke posted:Murder is an interesting example because we do consider it okay under certain circumstances. Self defense is acceptable, and we tend to distinguish murder by various degrees of severity so we acknowledge that accidentally hitting and killing someone with your car is different than putting a bomb in theirs. We also generally consider it acceptable for some people to kill as part of their profession, soldiers and police officers.
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Jan 22, 2021 04:38
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Deteriorata posted:No, it colors everything about you. You tend to have very absolutist, unhealthy opinions about almost everything. This is a pretty solid point. Despair is easy. Self-hatred can feel really good, but it is empty in the end and it colors everything else in your thoughts. Something to ask, from a Christian point of view, is this: What authority to you have to condemn anyone, even yourself? Self-hatred is not humility, it is pride telling you that you know better than anyone else how you should be viewed, and that you should hold yourself to standards you would not hold anyone else to.
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Jan 22, 2021 04:51
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If a sinner refuses Christ because they want to go to hell, what kind of hell will they get? Asking for a
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Jan 22, 2021 09:42
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Probably the same kind as everyone else. If I've understood correctly, it might be pretty much anything "externally". I don't think there's enough information about it in the Bible or if it can even be accurately described in human terms at all. Same as Heaven. Also, you get to stay there for eternity. The defining factor is, though, that you didn't really want to be there after all. Personally I think that is because without God the place just has no love or other good things. Virtues, if you will.
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Jan 22, 2021 13:46
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Siivola posted:If a sinner refuses Christ because they want to go to hell, what kind of hell will they get? My guess would be regular Hell. There's only one kind of Hell from the Christian theological point of view. Unless you're referring to Dante's Inferno 9 Rings of Hell, but that's poetic license, not actually taught Christian theology.
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Jan 22, 2021 14:27
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Siivola posted:If a sinner refuses Christ because they want to go to hell, what kind of hell will they get? The boring ol' "nothing good because of the complete absence of God, which is exactly what they asked for" Hell. "I want to go to Hell because I am really, really bad" and "I don't need to worship God, because I am just that awesome" are, from a Catholic perspective, two sides of the sin of pride. Just like there's presumption, "I know this is wrong, but God will forgive me, so it's ok", before an action, there's despair afterwards: "what I did was so very, very bad that God will never forgive me", and they're both setting one's own judgement above God's. Now, just like somebody whose physical appetite for food is damaged in some way such that they compulsively overeat isn't culpable for gluttony, and somebody who's experiencing severe stress after a traumatic experience and lashes out angrily at the slightest provocation isn't culpable for wrath, somebody who suffers from depression isn't culpable for that despair, at least not fully. C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, had a hypothetical where one person being basically recognized as a "good person" might not really have done anything that meritorious, because they had a "good digestion" and a good upbringing, whereas a person with a bad digestion and a poor upbringing deciding, one day, to refrain from one act of petty cruelty, might have accomplished a mighty deed of virtue, and that can be extended to basically all the sins out there. (I am very convinced that Hell exists, in part because it makes our choices in this life meaningful, but primarily because we were created from nothing - everything that was created, was created from nothing - so when we put created things, especially our own selves, above God, we're choosing nothing rather than He Who Is. When we die, we get what we asked for: either an experience of perfect existence with no unrealized potential, nothing taken away or obscured (that is, seeing the One whose constant action is be-ing, face to face), or experiencing nothing at all except our own self and its hollowness. Some of us will still be clinging to some nothingness when we die, so (metaphorically) our fingers will have to be pried away from the nothingness; that's Purgatory, and if you don't think "prying fingers off something" sufficiently describes the suffering that some saints have associated with Purgatory, you've never pried a toddler's fingers off anything.)
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Jan 22, 2021 16:29
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I'm not sure about the existence of Hell to be honest, but I am someone who hopes fervently that if there is a Hell, it's empty. I hope with all my heart for universal salvation. For the ultimate reconciliation of everyone in love, once freed of the pains and distortions and wreckage of the world. I hope.
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Jan 22, 2021 16:43
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Shower thoughts: Does Jesus ever say in the bible that he is going to die for our sins? Or was it tacked on later to make sense of his death and/or prophecies?
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Jan 22, 2021 16:55
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Tias posted:Shower thoughts: The Last Supper lays it out pretty clearly.
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Jan 22, 2021 17:27
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White Coke posted:Murder is an interesting example because we do consider it okay under certain circumstances. Self defense is acceptable, and we tend to distinguish murder by various degrees of severity so we acknowledge that accidentally hitting and killing someone with your car is different than putting a bomb in theirs. We also generally consider it acceptable for some people to kill as part of their profession, soldiers and police officers. Yeah, see that is the problem. "We agree that murdering all these people is good" doesn't end well. It gives people ways to get around simple precepts and instead go "oh but you see it's fine, he was running at me" and even if people disagree with the person in question if no-one saw it, there would be no easy way of telling if the person was lying or not. Violence is, unfortunately, a fundamental part of everything. There is no way to remove oneself from what it is, or what it represents to people. Not least because, to the powerless, violence always feel like it could/would be giving them liberty. I can't even say they would be wrong. Liquid Communism posted:but it is empty in the end and it colors everything else in your thoughts. As a response to the first bit, the overarching thing is though is that it is just your thoughts. As long as other people can't see them, they don't exist and you can continue to hate yourself with no outward showing of it. To the other bit, sure it is pride, to a greater or lesser extent. But I don't hold myself up any higher standard than I hold other people. People cannot fundamentally know each other, there is no way of you seeing things from my point of view or me seeing things from your point of view exactly as you intend to. It's just not possible, there is always going to be a degree of seperateness between "you" and others which is fundamentally unbridgeable. Probably just standard hell, leastwise it's not like Buddhism where there are lots of different sorts of hell. If God is with us everywhere and everywhen then I really have some questions about none intervention. zonohedron posted:somebody who suffers from depression isn't culpable for that despair, at least not fully. This seems like a recent development. I thought that the Church buried didn't bury suicides in consecrated ground? Would no-one else prefer nothing? No, just me? Make some weird P-zombie version of me for other people if they want to see me, but Gods I can't wait to not be.
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Jan 22, 2021 17:50
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zonohedron posted:(I am very convinced that Hell exists, in part because it makes our choices in this life meaningful, but primarily because we were created from nothing - everything that was created, was created from nothing - so when we put created things, especially our own selves, above God, we're choosing nothing rather than He Who Is. When we die, we get what we asked for: either an experience of perfect existence with no unrealized potential, nothing taken away or obscured (that is, seeing the One whose constant action is be-ing, face to face), or experiencing nothing at all except our own self and its hollowness. Some of us will still be clinging to some nothingness when we die, so (metaphorically) our fingers will have to be pried away from the nothingness; that's Purgatory, and if you don't think "prying fingers off something" sufficiently describes the suffering that some saints have associated with Purgatory, you've never pried a toddler's fingers off anything.) It's funny because as I have mentioned in the past, the fairest system seems to be the Mormon proposal, where everyone is raised at the last judgment and gets all of their questions answered by patient angels and/or Jesus until they are fully satisfied, and only THEN can they make the fully informed, pressure-free decision if they want to go to Hell or be annihilated, I forget which. I don't think Satan gets this privilege, but to be fair Satan seems to know what he was up to.
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Jan 22, 2021 20:19
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Nessus posted:My big issue with Hell has always been that at a certain point you're giving an infinite penalty for a finite action. I just can't square that even if the finite action was really, really bad. Purgatory has always been far more intuitive to me, even if, of course, now I think any hell realms are all Purgatory, whether they like it or not! Hey, you've accurately described why I'm a universalist! For the precise same reason! Because I don't believe any finite human fault can ever merit infinite punishment, nor do I think finite human sin can withstand the infinite love of God forever.
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Jan 22, 2021 20:22
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Does man have the capacity for the infinite? I think yes, but either way there are logical consequences.
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Jan 22, 2021 23:00
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